On my own

Today I was scheduled to go up with the CFI to work on more ground reference maneuvers, which the CFI wanted me to go over again because there weren't much winds the last time I did them. The weather today was cloudy at about 1500-2000 ft and no winds. I called the CFI and said the weather didn't look good for any of the maneuvers we planned on doing. He agreed, but thought it was still a good opportunity for me to go solo and get more practice with the plane on my own. I was happy to do that.

I also mentioned that I had been going over a bunch of material on navigation. Yesterday I learned to use a flight computer, and solve navigation problems with it. I also told him I was working on my flight simulator to practice maneuvers, landings, radio, and navigation equipment. He seemed impressed and said that even rudimentary simulators have helped his students out a lot when they started learning about the navigation equipment. So I suggested that since we've been having a lot of low wind days that perhaps we could move on to cross country in the meantime and when a day came up with winds we would concentrate on ground reference maneuvers. He agreed. So it looks like next tuesday I will start with that :)

Now for today... I eagerly went to the airport over a long lunch break. The first solo flight is exciting, but the instructor is still with you in the plane for most of that lesson, and on the radio watching from the ground for your solo part. Today I am really on my own. I check the winds at the airport, and call the local ASOS for the weather report. Pre-flight the plane (the C-150 today). Power everything up, taxi out to the runway, do the pre-flight check list and take off... all on my own. I felt relaxed though and excited, even though the weather was crap - again. I'm not going to know what to do with myself when we get some clear skies!

So I'm up in the air now... now what? Where do I go? I had planned on going out to the usual practice area and practice my ground reference maneuvers, but instead I thought "Why not do the obligatory buzz-my-house maneuver" instead? I used my new GPSMAP 96C to navigate over to my house. I couldn't believe how fast I got there! It's normally about a 20 minute trip to the airport. But in the air it's only about 5 minutes due to traveling about twice the speed and no traffic - or traffic lights for that matter. Seriously... I am sick of traffic, traffic lights and speed limits! I just got a ticket the other day for going 48 in a 30. But not now. Now I am in a plane and if you go 30 you fall out of the sky. So I press on at 85-90. In the sky the only speed limit is Vne. So I fly over to my house, call my wife on the cell phone and say "Come out and look!". I see her and my 3 kids come out on the driveway and wave. I wave the wings and fly on. I do find a field though were I can fly ground reference maneuvers. The tricky part about them for me at this point, is maintaining my altitude while I circle around. I will have to work on that in upcoming solo flights. While flying over the field, I notice some other birds (seagulls I think) flying at about the same area at the same altitude I am. This concerns me. I hope they are watching out for me.

Then I fly back up north to the airport, and find it pretty easily. I do 2 touch & gos and a full stop landing. Put the plane away, secure it, file the paper work. It felt great to take the plane out for a spin today, and as always I look forward to the next time.